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The ACLU recently put out a presidential candidate comparison score card for civil liberties and ranked a number of GOP presidential candidates, President Obama, and former-GOP candidate Gary Johnson, who is now a candidate for the Libertarian Party’s nomination for President.

According to the ACLU’s report card, Gary Johnson actually scored better than any of the other candidates, including the Democratic incumbent, President Barack Obama. Buddy Roemer, the Republican who is vying for the nomination of the Americans Elect party, is also on the scorecard, receiving the lowest possible score.

This is not accurate since Gary Johnson is worse than Ron Paul on civil liberties.

Gary Johnson favors keeping the prison at Guantanamo Bay open and Ron Paul wants to close it.

Gary Johnson only wants to decriminalize marijuana while keeping other drugs “illegal,” while Ron Paul wants to completely end the War on Drugs.

Gary Johnson does not favor granting pardons to people who’ve been convicted for victimless “crimes” (he has stated that he does not believe that it is proper for a Governor or President to pardon people who’ve been convicted under any law, and that the proper response is that people should work within the system to change the law, and Gary Johnson defended this position while on the campaign trail during this election cycle).

Ron Paul advocates jury nullification (there’s even a chapter on it in one of his current books), while Gary Johnson has been silent on the issue (given Johnson stance on granting pardons, I wouldn’t be suprised if he’s against jury nullification).

Bottom line: Ron Paul is a much better candidate that Gary Johnson. He’s more libertarian, more well known, and can raise a lot more money.

“Gary Johnson does not favor granting pardons to people who’ve been convicted for victimless “crimes” (he has stated that he does not believe that it is proper for a Governor or President to pardon people who’ve been convicted under any law, and that the proper response is that people should work within the system to change the law, and Gary Johnson defended this position while on the campaign trail during this election cycle).”

I neglected to mention that Ron Paul favors pardoning people for victimless “crimes.”

This one issue alone puts Ron Paul leaps and bounds ahead of Gary Johnson when it comes to civil liberties.

I agree that Paul is, on the whole, better on civil liberties than is Johnson. Paul is much more courageous in opposing our encroaching Police State.

However, I’m guessing the ACLU gave Johnson more points than it gave to Paul, because Paul would return abortion laws to the states.

Abortion rights weigh more heavily among the ACLU’s upper middle class donors, than do the rights of inner city blacks or foreigners (the chief victims of our Drug War and War on Terror, respectively).

With so many liberal institutions becoming little more that Democratic cheerleaders, burying their heads in the sand when it comes to their preferred elected officials, it’s nice to see that the ACLU keeping to its own ideals.

I suspect that their primary focus on law, rather than politics, tends to influence that, though it does make it surprising that they even weighed in on rating candidates.

Andy – you have a point about Paul being better on Gitmo and the War on Drugs.

On the other hand, Paul has a full-up anti-freedom stance on immigration and even advocates revoking birthright citizenship. Apparently he believes your right to exist in the US comes from who your momma was. Johnson is *much* better on this one.

3 torches (out of four in each category) on humane immigration policy, two torches on closing Guantanamo Bay and (ending) indefinite detention, 4 torches on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, 3 torches on ending torture, 3 torches on ending the surveillance state, 4 torches on freedom to marry for gay couples and 2 torches on reproductive choice for a total 21/28

Ron Paul 2 on immigration, 4 on Guantanamo, 4 on gays in the military, 3 on ending torture, 4 on ending surveillance state, 1 on gay marriage and 0 on reproductive choice, total 18/28.